Taxes

We all know how filing taxes is a pain. Every April Americans dig through receipts, meet with accountants, claim their expenses, and pray they're not audited. It takes a significant amount of time and energy, and frankly, it doesn’t make that much sense that we have to calculate what we owe the government.

But our guest, Jessica Huseman, who appeared on Adam Ruins the Economy, tells us taxes doesn't have to be so hard. In many other countries around the world, citizens file their taxes through a system called return-free filing. That means instead of citizens calculating what they owe the government, the government will calculate their taxes and essentially send them the bill. Unfortunately, the tax companies like H&R Block and TurboTax prefer the status quo because that means more business for them; they've actually very successfully lobbied the government to keep this system in place.

Jessica is a reporter with ProPublica and helped break this story for the organization earlier this year.